


Vows

by eva_cybele



Category: Persona 3, Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-24
Updated: 2015-02-24
Packaged: 2018-03-14 23:52:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3430181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eva_cybele/pseuds/eva_cybele
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Persona Q, all the character development is accelerated. Why not romances, too? </p>
<p>Shinjiro is chosen as Minako's "destined partner" in the Group Date Cafe labyrinth. </p>
<p>Persona Q, P3P female route AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vows

Of all the things she’d expected to happen when they got to end of the Group Date Cafe, being dropped into a field of flowers was not particularly high on the list. Minako groaned and pushed herself into a sitting position, taking in the sky above her -- it was blue and empty, with no hint of the trapdoor she’d fallen through. _Of course not._

Muffled cursing drew her attention to the only other denizen of this level of the labyrinth. Shinjiro pulled himself slowly to his feet, and Minako remembered abruptly that the mechanical voice that had led them through the labyrinth had declared him her “destined partner” right before dropping them in here. A blush heated her cheeks -- it wasn’t like she was unhappy with the outcome, but they’d only known each other a few weeks.

A gruff voice interrupted her mental flailing, and Minako looked up to see a hand held out to her. “You okay?”

Quickly smothering her blush and replacing it with a sunny smile, Minako reached up and grasped Shinjiro’s hand, using it to pull herself to her feet. “Yep! Just fine.”

His hand lingered on hers, and her stomach fluttered with excitement.

“The hell?” Shinjiro jerked his hand back, but instead of slipping out, her own hand followed, like it was glued.

The disappointment that her senpai wasn’t actually flirting with her flared and died in a split second, and resolve rose up in its place. She was okay with having to do the heavy lifting herself -- she hadn’t been lying when she said that she preferred boys who made modest moves over bold ones.

The mechanical voice broke over an unseen speaker, declaring that they could either step forward, hand-in-hand, or refrain. As if just standing around was ever actually an option.

“Destined partners? This is ridiculous. There’s no damn way…” Shinjiro’s voice trailed off, and Minako glanced away, pretending she hadn’t seen the consternation on his face, the genuine discomfort. If you had asked her a week ago, Minako would have said that her senpai would have shrugged this kind of thing off, would have stayed calm and not let it bother him. That he was out of sorts was an interesting development, to say the least. Not to mention kind of adorable.

The voice repeated its earlier declaration about their “apparent options,” and then fell silent.

Shinjiro sighed and rubbed his free hand over the back of his neck. “It ain’t listening. Guess we’ll just have to get going. We’re alone in here -- don’t leave my side, got it?”

Minako laughed and raised their joined hands. “No worries on that front, senpai.”

His eyes flicked down and then to the side, and Minako thought she might have caught the hint of a blush, though she couldn’t tell whether it was embarrassment about forgetting, or about their situation as a whole.

“Oh, yeah. Right.”

She spared him any further teasing and started forward. “C’mon, senpai. Follow me!”

Shinjiro took a long step and caught up with her easily. “You don’t need to force yourself to be all leader-y, you know. You put on that chipper face to keep everyone else from feeling discouraged, but you just got over being sick, and then get tossed in here with no goddamn clue what’s going on. I know it can’t be easy. All that ‘burden of command’ shit.”

_Oh._ The unexpected gentleness in his voice cut straight to her heart -- she usually took for granted the fact that her friends didn’t see how tiring it was to be in charge, usually prided herself on it, actually. After all, wasn’t that the whole point? To have someone see right through her masks was disconcerting, but at the same time, kind of a relief.

Before she could find the words for a proper response, the mechanical voice echoed around them again, saying something about a “joyous commemorative photograph of love.” Sure enough, up ahead was a large framed portrait, and even though Shinji told the voice that they “weren’t looking at shit,” there was no way Minako could just pass it by.

Someone had badly pasted hers and Shinjiro’s heads onto a picture of a royal bride and groom, and Minako had to bite back laughter at the fact that Shinji was still wearing his beanie under a crown. It was like one of those things at amusement parks, where you stuck your head in the hole and it made you look like a cowboy or a princess or something.

She shook her head. “Who knew Shadows could use Photoshop?”

“Man, I don’t even wanna think about that. This is so stupid. C’mon.” He dragged her away from the picture and down the path, rather resolutely not looking her direction.

They were almost to the door of the church at the end of the path when Minako slowed and tugged Shinjiro to a stop next to her.

“What’s the matter? We’re almost there.”

Minako turned to face him, pressing her free hand lightly against one cheek, and her lips against the other. She felt his entire body go rigid at the touch, and his hand tightened on hers almost to the point of pain. “I just wanted to say thank you. For worrying about me.”

Shinjiro cleared his throat and looked away. “Moron. The hell do you think you’re doing, pulling a stunt like that in a place like this?”

He hadn’t, she noticed, tried to pull away from the hand that was still resting against his cheek. Her mouth curved up in a small smile -- he liked to think he was such a mystery, but he wasn’t so hard to read after all.

“Maybe the atmosphere is getting to me?”

He sighed, and all the tension went out of his body with his breath. When he looked at her again, she could see him mentally pulling back, creating distance between them. Gently, he closed his hand around her wrist and pushed it down to hang by her side. “I’m not the kinda guy you want to be here with, Arisato. Trust me.”

Anger flashed but she shoved it down, smiling instead. “Why don’t you let me be the judge of that, senpai?”

His thumb rubbed a small circle against the inside of her wrist, an unconscious gesture by the look of it, but it made her entire arm break out in goosebumps. He was trying so damn hard to be some kind of martyr, when it was clear to anyone who knew how to look that he was every bit as interested in her as she was in him. It was infuriating, and it only made her more determined.

Patience was one of her strongest virtues, though, and even without a Moon arcana persona whispering advice in the back of her mind, she knew that pushing now would only make things worse. She’d rattled him, given him something to think about. It was time to let that seed grow.

But as Shinjiro shoved through the church doors without paying a damn bit of attention to the wedding-related blather of the weird voice, as their hands came unstuck, as their friends came running in from a side door just in time to fight a giant priest shadow, Minako made a vow to herself: when they got out of here, she was _done_ waiting.

**Author's Note:**

> I noticed no one had really been writing femc versions of anything in PQ, and I was really struck by a couple of lines in the P3MC/Shinjiro "wedding scene," so I decided to write it myself.


End file.
